Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
A Look at Foster Care Through the Lens of a Former Foster Youth: Brianna’s Journey
Brianna Groah and her former case manager Kinsey Howell share the raw reality of foster care from the perspective of a child who lived through it. With honesty and vulnerability, they reveal what makes the difference between mere survival and genuine healing in the system.
• Life before foster care included living in tents in the Florida woods after fleeing CPS in West Virginia
• The trauma of removal and placement in eight different foster homes over five years
• Why Bri intentionally sabotaged relationships with foster families as a loyalty test
• The critical moment when Brianna realized she could love her adoptive family without betraying her biological mother
• How case manager Kinsey became the one constant in Bri's life by simply showing up consistently
• The importance of giving foster children space rather than forcing immediate connection
• Why open adoption and sibling relationships remain complicated but vital
• How Bri's adoptive moms created safety through understanding rather than punishment
If you're a foster or adoptive parent, remember that giving your child space to process emotions in their own way is often the most healing gift you can offer. The path to attachment isn't forced—it's earned through consistent presence and understanding.
Hi guys, thanks so much for joining us today. On Behind the Curtain I'm your host, rebecca Harvin, and this is where we have honest conversations about foster care and adoption. I am really, really, really excited about today's conversation because we get it from the other side of the curtain. My guest today on the show is Bree Groh. She was adopted from foster care and is here to tell her story with her former case manager, kenzie Howell. Here's my conversation with Bree and Kenzie. Hey guys, thanks so much for joining me, for coming and for recording, and Bree for telling your story. It is no small thing to sit behind a mic and tell your story as a person who experienced foster care as a child.
Speaker 2:Hi Hi.
Speaker 1:Kenzie hi Thanks for being here and for being her support blanket today. Thank you for having us. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am. I'm really glad that you reached out. I'm really, really, really glad as a former foster mom and now adoptive mom, to hear what it was like on the other side, like we only get it from our side right. I only know what it's like to welcome a case manager into my home and tell them however things going or whatever, but I don't know it from being in foster care. So can you tell me a little bit about your story, about life before foster care, how you kind of got into foster care and what that was like? That's a big loaded question. So let's start with life before foster care.
Speaker 2:It was life. We didn't have everything, we didn't have a lot, but for the most part we were happy. We were happy to be all together.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Are you?
Speaker 1:the oldest.
Speaker 2:No, I am the second oldest.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love a second oldest. We always did sibling groups when we were fostering and, without fail, it was easiest for me to bond with the second oldest because I am a second oldest in my house, like I know that birth order so well. Okay, so you and three siblings, you're living with mom and dad.
Speaker 2:I was living with mom and someone who I called my dad.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, family dynamics can get a little fuzzy. Is that a good word?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay and life is okay. But then something had to have kind of gone downhill a little bit for you to enter foster care. So did it go down quickly, I guess is the question, or did it go down gradually over time?
Speaker 2:So the process of getting into foster, care went down gradually over time, but my life went down real fast.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I moved to Florida and thenthew hit the day we got here, okay, so we were living in the woods for about how many months they got here in september of 2016 and you were there until march of 2017 and living in tents in the woods during the hurricane season okay.
Speaker 2:So life went downhill quickly and that's just because, um they, your parents, couldn't find a place to live or, like hurricane matthew kind of disrupted their plans um, my mother told me it was hurricane matthew that disrupted the plans, but now that I'm older I more of think we moved down here without a plan okay but I was told we had a home and it got washed away from hurricane matthew.
Speaker 2:I don't think so there's like gaps in the story now that I like look back on the conversation, but we were young, so, yeah, gullible yeah, brie, there's always gaps in the story like that.
Speaker 1:I think that that's the thing that I kinsey's shaking her head, yes, um, I think I always experience trust as my first thing that I pull for. Like, I always talk to somebody and I just think that they're telling me exactly what is like. Why would they ever hide something or lie, like anything? And then I find out later. Especially in the system, there's always gaps and it's disheartening a little bit, but okay, so where did you move from?
Speaker 2:We moved from West Virginia.
Speaker 1:Okay To Florida, planned, unplanned.
Speaker 2:It was planned, but a very short outlet plan that was more of like hey, we're moving in a few weeks, okay, or moving next week, I forget the exact.
Speaker 1:Okay, so something happened in your mom's life in West Virginia that was like the impetus for we got to get out of this state.
Speaker 2:I think we were running from CPS.
Speaker 3:Oh, that'll do it, we were.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Kenzie verifies.
Speaker 2:We were running from CPS up in West Virginia and then, well, we ended up coming anyway down here because home situation.
Speaker 1:But yeah, okay, okay. So then that suggests that, like things weren't okay in west virginia, you just didn't know that things weren't okay, that whatever your normal was, um, I experienced this gosh.
Speaker 1:I can't even tell you how our normal wasn't always okay, so yeah, it's okay to say that well it's, and everybody's normal is their normal right and so there's a lot of times where you don't know that normal is not normal, or normal is not okay in quotation marks or necessarily legal like it's not. It's just what is happening inside of your home and and it's normal.
Speaker 3:I think, that's something that a lot of foster families, foster parents, don't necessarily understand at first, because from the outside, looking in, without any child welfare experience at all, you're thinking, oh, this kid's coming to my house from a tent, they're going to love it, they're going to be so grateful for everything and it's like no, because this isn't their normal. That's correct. Their normal is living in a tent, that's where they want to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah and oh. By the way, their mom is back there.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're not. We're definitely not grateful for not being with our mom. She's my safe person, right? Whether, whether in every individual circumstance mom is safe or not safe is beside the point. It really is beside the point. I remember in pride class them telling us, like, maybe don't wash their blankets right away when they come into your house, unless you absolutely need to because that blanket smells like home still. And so even if you hate the smell of cigarette smoke, or even if you like, unless there's bed bugs or something, in that blanket, don't wash it, and I stuck by that, like I would leave the scents around for as long as possible.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, the scents I liked I didn't realize were like smelling really bad. Like I remember, my mom met this guy on the side of the road when her car broke down and she befriended him and a couple days later me and my siblings were staying at his house without her but I took a shower and I realized I smelled clean and it didn't smell normal. I mean, I loved feeling clean, but something it just didn't feel right. It just made me miss my mom even more.
Speaker 2:We didn't stay there for long, but we did end up staying, often for showers, very unsafe, but he was, thank God, a nice guy.
Speaker 1:It's hard to hold that dichotomy right, like, yeah, you shouldn't have sent us to this stranger's house by yourself, but I did get a shower and he was a nice guy. But this could have gone downhill very quickly. Okay, so you're living in a tent somewhere in the middle of the woods, hiding from CPS in West Virginia, about to find CPS here in um. How how did you feel living in the tent? Um, how old are you at this point?
Speaker 2:I was in fourth grade, so that was 10, 11, probably nine I think nine is typically fourth grade um, and then I turned 10 before I got okay. So I was. I got there nine, but my birthday did pass like it was and my birthday's in december, so I was 10 too. Um, at first it was really scary. That was the first time I've ever seen a wild boar oh, a group of them. The first night we saw them.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not.
Speaker 2:I was so scared because I slept in a tent, my brother slept in a tent, and then my mom and my two youngest siblings slept in the car. And I'm just going to say he's my dad.
Speaker 2:I call him, my dad. My dad was sleeping in the tent too, and then eventually we moved farther back in the woods and I slept in the tent that we found in the woods Like an old homeless person I guess used to use. So I slept in that tent and then my parents and my uncle my uncle and a bit later joined us, stole this big tent from like Walmart, so they slept in that. We put all our stuff in there and then eventually we just ended up gathering more and more tents. So we had a tent for our stuff.
Speaker 2:My brothers showed our bigger tent because they ripped a hole in it. But it was supposed to be mine and my sister's tent. But since they ripped a big hole in it in the back where animals can get in, they had to sleep in that tent and me and my sister slept in a smaller tent and we found a little bed. We would go dumpster diving and we found a little bed for her and we put them like blankets and stuff on it and then she slept on that. I slept on the floor of the tent very squished, and my mom and her now boyfriend slept in this bigger tent with like a little part where we stashed the food a canned food that we all get from food drives, so eventually it just felt like a home there was bedrooms as one's tents.
Speaker 2:There was a big living room, which is just because our tents were in the middle, and we had a big area where we patted down. It's soft, it's flat, and we had a fireplace. We had chairs. It just felt like a home without a roof, so it felt normal starting. Yeah, I stopped being scared and all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no school, normal starting. Yeah, I stopped being scared and all that.
Speaker 2:yeah, um, no school we did go to school you went to school I'm still very close with a classmate that had with fourth grade and he told me like straight up, the things that people thought of me in fourth grade, which is that I stink and people made fun of me a lot, but I didn't know because they were always so nice to me and the administration area. They bought me toothpaste, toothbrush. They brought me new shoes. They brought me like clothes, like I was allowed to use the bathroom in the office to brush my teeth, wash my face, put deodorant on and change. So they were a big help.
Speaker 1:But that speaks to like an awareness of your living situation a little bit Were they aware that you were living in tents in the middle of the woods.
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think they just knew something was going on.
Speaker 1:Something was going on at home and like you needed a little bit of extra support. Man, okay, did you inherently know not to tell people?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think so. I think I was more embarrassed.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Not that it was so wrong.
Speaker 1:Who makes the call eventually? Do you know?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure. I do know. For my little sister's birthday, which was in January, two police officers came in the back with cupcakes and a present for her because they knew we were living back there and I think that was for her first birthday. But we didn't get taken until March, so I'm not quite sure. I do know they found out, but they didn't take us right away. They gave us money to go in hotels and we stayed in hotels for a few weeks, like just hopping from hotel to hotel, and eventually got to the point where my mom still didn't get it. I think it was to get a job. Right, my mom still didn't get a job. So they stopped giving us money for hotels. We went back to the woods and then they took us.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Okay. So there was like a safety plan in the language of the system, and then the safety plan didn't work and they were like okay, did you guys get split to different homes? All four of you stayed together. At first Our first home.
Speaker 2:Home it was with these two dads. They took us all in. Um, they bought us new clothes of when we first got there we had clothes already like ready. Um, I shared a bedroom with my older brother and we had bunk beds and my little sister. They got a crib for her and I think my brother still had a. He was like in a little baby bed, but not a crib like the one you grow out of a toddler bed.
Speaker 2:So they did get a lot of stuff for us. Um, first night was really scary. I slept in a real bed for the like after a while. It was really weird, but we got to take hot showers and it felt really good. Um, but we were all four together at that moment gosh, this might.
Speaker 1:This question might be too personal, but my kids were are too young to say like what it felt like. Do you, are you able to say what it felt like for you when the I'm sure cops show up and investigators shows up? There's a big scene at the tents and then you're removed. What is that? How do you experience that as a fourth grader?
Speaker 2:I honestly felt powerless. They wouldn't listen to me, that I wanted to stay. Obviously they're not going to, but like I felt powerless and I felt safe with my mom and they're just taking me away from my only safety in a state I don't know, like nothing about. I don't know anyone besides the people I go to school with. I don't like we don't have any family friends. The only people I knew is my family and my classmates and I felt very powerless and just them taking me from my mom, like it really did hurt and I wanted to do nothing but jump out of the car.
Speaker 1:But that like panicky feeling of like I need to get out of this car, I need to get out of this car, I need to get out of this car, like that. Yeah, I felt like that a couple times.
Speaker 2:But I'm really rational. I mean, I grew up taking care of my two younger siblings. I was like their second mom, like I fed them, I've changed them, I I took good care of them and I think I was also worried about the fact of not seeing them. So it was, it was really scary so you're all together night one.
Speaker 1:How long do you guys get to stay together?
Speaker 2:I think we stayed at that house for a few weeks, a month or two. It wasn't long. Um, I then we were supposed to spend a few nights at this next home, just spend a few nights, but then the dads never came back and pick us up. So then that's when we slowly started getting separated Just spend a few nights, but then the dads never came back and pick us up. So then that's when we slowly started getting separated Because they already had four kids of their own. Taking another four especially troubled my older brother. He wasn't the best kid, so it just made everything harder. With two little babies, like one baby one, not too far from that age. I mean, I'm traumatized. It was just they had to split us up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like you're being really kind, looking at it from an adult's perspective, but you experienced it as a kid.
Speaker 2:That's just how I thought.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It has to go with growing up fast from my own yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you god, you know there's a lot of ways we cannot screw kids up even more, but lying to them is one of them. Like, just say like. Just say like, hey, it's been great or it's been hard, but are we need to like we are gonna move you guys, instead of saying hey, it's just gonna be a couple days?
Speaker 3:if I remember right, I do think that it was supposed to be a respite situation to begin with, and then it was one of those things where it was like they felt that break and that like calmness with them not being there, and I think it kind of relieved them.
Speaker 1:And then they realized that they couldn't take them back fair, fine, but they could still show back up and they could still say hey, like, say those things. You know, like man.
Speaker 2:It wasn't the first time I was abandoned either. That was the first time, but then it later does happen with this other family.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you guys start getting split up, jumping forward a little bit, and then I want to fill in some gaps.
Speaker 3:Over your years in foster care how many homes do you end up in Eight? Okay, eight, I think that's a good estimate.
Speaker 1:Until your adopted family, until you land there.
Speaker 2:I moved more than homes I had. I kept going back to some homes.
Speaker 3:More times. She was moved to different homes but she went back to some of the same homes, so it was like more moves than homes like same home. So if you're going back there again, we're not counting that as a new placement because you're back in the same place even though she didn't move again. How many?
Speaker 1:moves did you have quite a few quite a few more than 15 15?
Speaker 3:Really Probably around there, probably right around there.
Speaker 1:In how many years?
Speaker 3:Five Four 2017 to 2022?.
Speaker 2:Five.
Speaker 1:More than 15 moves in five years.
Speaker 3:I would say right around 15. Probably, not more, right at 15 or less probably. For her, her brother was a different story, oh, my gosh, I just want you to know.
Speaker 1:the anger that I am feeling right now inside of my veins is wants to burn the whole place down. For you, like I am and this is why I got into foster care to begin with was for this to like because of the injustice. It is the anger that I am feeling right now for you, bree. That should not have happened and I'm sorry that it did. Okay, before I start crying Jesus Lord, have mercy. Okay, so dads, don't show back up. It's the first time you experience true abandonment. You move to the next place. How does that impact your ability to attach to those foster parents? Do you trust them? Do you not trust them? Do you, do you not know not to trust yet? So there's an element where you can still I don't know not to trust yet.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty, I'm starting to get there. It was harder for me and I think the problem I had the most in that home because my sister still lived with me at this time. I did later come back to this home, just me. I did end up trusting them a lot.
Speaker 1:So they end up splitting the boys and the girls basically Okay, this home takes two girls. Yeah, we were all together, Okay.
Speaker 2:Then they took my brothers and moved them because they wanted to keep the girls to us. Okay, took my brothers, moved them because they wanted to keep the girls to us. Okay. The problem I had the most in this home is they. I felt like they were trying to take my sister from me, like she's the only thing I had, and I felt like they were trying to become her mom and it would really make me mad because they'll be like what is she saying? I'm like she's saying this. Why can't you understand that? I mean, I grew, I grew up with her, so I know how she talks, I know what she's saying.
Speaker 1:And she's like one and a half at this point, right.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So she would. It wouldn't even sound like the word what she was saying, but I just knew what she was saying and I would get mad at them because I feel like they're trying to replace my mom and my family and can't even understand her.
Speaker 1:And so in your brain at the time you're 10. Now you're like you don't even have a right to replace my mom. You can't even understand what she's saying Like I can feel this like 10-year-old. The sass was there at 10. Kenzie, you know them by this point. You meet them because you are her driver. You're taking her to her appointments. All of the siblings, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I started at the agency as the transporter for the kids. So we were together a lot during the week between doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, visitations with mom, all the things. And this kid has been sassy since the day I met her and it still lives on fiercely, but in a more mature way. Now I think It'll be right by you in life.
Speaker 1:I love a little sass. I love a little sass in a kid, like I'm like good, be spunky, don't let the world get you down. Like, go after it Also. I do need you to listen to me like 50% of the time. Go after it Also. I do need you to listen to me like 50% of the time.
Speaker 2:But you're just feeling all of this sass Like you're like you don't get to take my sister, you're not my mom, so you are clearly feeling that in a way that you didn't feel with the dads I think most of the dads especially that I'm a female moving into their home. I think they just stayed back and laid back a little bit until I got to my next few homes, but I did end up building a relationship with both the mom and the dad, okay, and the siblings, like I just felt like part of their family.
Speaker 1:And how long do you get to stay there, or does time get really fuzzy?
Speaker 2:Time starts to get fuzzy, so I was there the longest out of both times I was there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, okay, okay, as you move from foster home to foster home how does that I mean, timing wise you're also going through puberty. Holy moly, that's hard. You've lived more life than most kids your age. So now you're in middle school and you're bouncing. Do you stay in the same school district? Do you stay at the same school? Are you having to do new schools all of the time?
Speaker 2:Um, for the most part I moved schools a lot. Um, my fourth home is where I did the most to stay at my school. I would wake up at 6am, take, and then we'll go pick up my my elementary school kids and then I would then be able to go to my school. But I was I woke up early, for because you don't pick up the elementary school kids until like 7, 7, 30 or something like I forget the exact time, but school didn't start till like 8, but I was getting on the bus at 6.
Speaker 1:And you're in the fifth grade.
Speaker 2:I was in the fifth grade. Yes, I chose that. I was like I do not want to move another school.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, everything else in your life at this point has been one revolving door of new after the other. So God help me, Let me stay in this school. And then you have the reverse on the back end right. You have to ride the bus like that all the way home. So two hours before school starts, two hours after school starts, you're in the fifth grade.
Speaker 3:Which can be a plus sometimes, but with it being that long, it's not our first choice. We don't want the kids to have to be on the bus for that long, but if they prefer to stay at their school and they know what that's going to look like and they're okay with it, we try to make it as accommodating as possible for them. But sometimes it just ends up being mad early in the morning for these kids.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing I was thinking and I didn't know if I should say it out loud, is sometimes that amount of time out of your foster home can be really nice, like oh, for those four hours a day. Now it's not great, because the school day is long enough already and what that does to an 11 year old, a 10 year old, an 11 year old, is very taxing. But sometimes it's like, yeah, but I didn't have to go home and be somebody else's daughter.
Speaker 2:And I hated this family, okay, absolutely hated them. I remember there was like this you know that foster party for Christmas. It's like this big place and then you go and pick out like five toys and then you just hang out with the families, other families and their foster kids. Do you guys know what I'm talking?
Speaker 1:about. Um, what is that? Well, it's a lot of. There's a couple different places that do christmas parties, but there was one organization in jacksonville are you talking about in jacksonville?
Speaker 3:this was like the our agency's christmas party. Oh, okay, she's talking about same idea, but like our agency as a whole.
Speaker 2:Okay, a christmas party, okay well, I remember I picked out my five toys. I already knew what they were because I picked them out, because each kid gets five gifts. Um, they're biological kids. I don't think we're supposed to get any, but they're my foster parents. They sent their kids to go get stuff. I'm like, okay, cool, whatever. And then we got home they told me to wrap my gifts, just so we can have extra gifts under the tree. I wrapped them, woke up for Christmas few weeks, like few. In the next few days, the only gifts I got were the ones I picked out. And they got me a little notebook and I've been asking for an iPad. I've been asking everyone for an iPad and their kids really wasn't asking for anything, but they got both of their kids electronics and I felt really left out.
Speaker 2:And then that's the same family that hit me and then cut me with her fingernail. Like her, she had really long fingernails, like they were really good, they were strong and stuff and it cut me and they called the cops saying I was hurting myself and no one would believe me besides Kenzie. I was like I don't have fingernails. I showed the cops saying I was hurting myself and no one would believe me besides Kenzie. I was like I don't have fingernails. I showed the cops I don't have fingernails. They wouldn't believe me. But Kenzie believed me. She was the only person, yeah, literally the only person that believed me.
Speaker 1:What was that like for you, Kenzie?
Speaker 3:You know it's hard, because I this is one of the main reasons I always tried to build a good relationship and have a good rapport with my kids, because I never wanted situations like this to happen, where the families were trying to make the kids out to be the problem, and so I think that, just based on the relationship they already had with Brianna, knowing the type of kid that she was, that was, first and foremost, like she's never done anything like this. So, a if she did something like this, she was clearly triggered by something or someone or a situation, and B I don't think that she would lie to me about it. That was the biggest thing, too is we always were very open and she was always very honest with me about things, regardless of whether or not she wanted me to tell the foster parents or the judge or anything.
Speaker 1:There wasn't a doubt in my mind at that point in time, knowing the type of kid that she was, that she would have done something like that to herself had you moved to case management by this point or were you still the driver and advocating to or were you still the driver? And?
Speaker 3:advocating to okay. Yeah, I became her case manager in January 2018. So it was already at that point that I had taken over the case, and it was hard, though, too, because you also have to have that level of trust with your foster families that are taking care of these kids that you have to make decisions for.
Speaker 3:So in my mind I'm like they shouldn't be lying to me about this, but I also don't want to make her feel like I don't believe her and trust her. So I think at that point in time it was really just hearing her side of the story and then hearing their side of the story, and when I realized that they didn't really align, I kind of knew what had happened and what had went down she got mad at me for kicking a hole in the wall the foster mom.
Speaker 2:I mean well, yeah, that's why that all went down but.
Speaker 1:But we shouldn't be like I don't know, hurting kids because they kick a hole in the wall when they're in foster care and I didn't mean to, it wasn't on purpose, and see, that's the difference right, it's like.
Speaker 3:My point of view immediately goes to why did she kick the wall? What happened before she kicked the wall?
Speaker 1:that's exactly the question that I was gonna ask. Yeah, what happened?
Speaker 2:I don't know I forgot something. But there was something that they were doing as a family, like not as a family, they weren't doing a family activity. But there was something. Everyone was against me, like both of their daughters them too. Everyone was just screaming at me. So now I'm screaming, I'm throwing my little tantrums, as I usually did, kicking my feet, swinging my arms. I was in a hallway. So when I was kicking my feet.
Speaker 1:I kicked a hole in the wall. You were out of control of your body is what you're saying. My kids get like this sometimes. There are times when they are having these massive behaviors and they are in their body and having the massive behaviors, and there are times when they're having it and they are not in their body, like their head and their bodies are not connected at all and the parenting is so different that I do right, like, my job at that point is to just like. My job is to keep you safe. So, okay, you hate this family. They'd sound like D minus foster parents to me. If we're giving people a score f, okay, you're not even as nice. You're like no, I lived there and I'm gonna tell you right now they shouldn't be foster parents.
Speaker 2:Um, that's so sad I believe that's the reason. They're the reason I got put on antidepressants. That was around the same time and then, after they called the cops for me and everything like not too long after that, I started getting put on antidepressants and I think I was a little mad about it and I don't remember if you were the one I yelled at.
Speaker 3:You yelled at me a lot. I took it. She can take it.
Speaker 2:But I yelled at Kinsey because I thought she didn't believe me, because I'm, the kids that hurt themselves get put on, and so I was really angry, really angry was it hard for you to know who was in charge of what?
Speaker 1:yes, I just assumed, kenzie okay, like kenzie was the actual authority in your life and everything else that happens is either kenzie's telling them or kenzie's not stopping them, or um, but Kinsey is this authority. She's my case manager, so everything goes through her. That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2:Kinsey, no pressure but I would yell at her because I knew she would never leave me how just something about the way.
Speaker 2:There's just something about Kinsey. It was. She was always there, she always listened, she always knew what to say and after she knew everything she would, she would still pick me up for a visitation. I would yell at her get out of the car. Next time someone picks me up it's Kinsey, like she always came back, even though it's her job. That I didn't. You know. I didn't put two and two together, you're a kid.
Speaker 2:She wasn't like switching like kids to pick up, she was still coming back. So I just learned that she will always come back. I'm going to cry.
Speaker 1:Don't cry. Well, I think what you're pointing out, something that's really both profound and something that caregivers need to know, is that the act of showing up is the healing thing that happens. Like for you to be able to say I knew I could act a fool which is what you just were describing and Kinsey was going to show up, and Kinsey was going to love me, and that I was going to be able to feel that love from her, like we were gonna be okay. Did you have to say sorry when you acted a fool?
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:I apologized on my own, you were easy you were quick to apologize like hey, sorry, I screamed at you, it was really.
Speaker 3:I mean, the maturity is just off, the she's always been a very self-aware kid, even when she didn't realize it. Like I mean, I can vividly remember having to like, bear, hug her multiple times during her tantrums because the foster parents had no idea what to do with her, and I was like she's 11 years old. She just wants you to love her.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 3:It's not that difficult, yeah, and I mean we talk about this a lot, but she was very much the child that felt guilty. So as soon as she started feeling like part of the family, that's when her tantrums would start, because she wanted to see how far she could push it before they got rid of her.
Speaker 2:I self-sabotaged every single family I have been with, besides the family I am with now.
Speaker 3:True story.
Speaker 2:I wasn't a bad kid, but I definitely. Once there was a relationship building, once there was a love and trust like assembling. It was a different Brie. I everything on purpose every tantrum, every yelling, every backtalk. I purposely did that. I wanted to see how long it would take for them to give me up, because I didn't want to betray my mother. Even, I think, I believe, when they told me that I wasn't going back with my mom, I still acted out. I did not want to betray my mom. But then it got to the point when I realized it's okay, it's okay to love another family and still love my mom, so that's when I stopped acting out, and then I got adopted.
Speaker 1:What you just said, brie, is one of the things that I talk to one of my kids about all of the time. We're post-adoption and my kids have all now been with me for longer than they've not been with me and one of them struggles. Two of them struggle significantly with if I love you and I trust you, I am betraying. We call her belly mom in our house. I am betraying. We call her belly mom in our house. I'm betraying her and I'm like two things can be true. You can love two. You have two moms. You love us both.
Speaker 1:It is the hardest concept for my kids to understand that they can love me and love her, can love me and love her, and that when I'm angry or when they're angry, that doesn't mean that love doesn't also exist, right? So my youngest will say do you love me when you're mad? And I'll say I love you when I'm mad. And they'll say do you love me when I'm bad? And I'll say I love you when you're bad. They'll say do you love me when you're happy? And I'll say I love you when I'm mad. And I'll say do you love me when I'm bad? And I'll say I love you when you're bad. They'll say do you love me when you're happy? And I'll say I love you when I'm happy. And he says do you love me when you're glad? And I'll say I love you when you're glad, and we do. We list as many emotions as we can, but he will come back.
Speaker 1:Do you love me if I poop in my pants? And I'm like I love you even when you poop in your pants. I do not love that you poop in your pants. Until we just have this like um back and forth, that we do and we do it. We do it all of the time. Because that's really the question at heart, right? Do you love me? Do do you love me when I'm a complete jerk to every other sibling in this house and it's like, yeah, I do, um, your heart has to ask that question and it has to get answered. So it finally does like you eventually realize how long were you in the system before you were TPR? Do you know?
Speaker 3:TPR happened at the end of 2021.
Speaker 2:And I got adopted in 2022.
Speaker 1:April, that's four years.
Speaker 2:And I'm still in the foster care I know.
Speaker 1:Kenzie. Oh my God.
Speaker 3:We could be here for days talking about that. That's a different story For another day.
Speaker 1:Four years of work, not work. I'm sure there were times when you thought you were going home, because you have to be really close to going home for it to drag on for four years.
Speaker 2:We almost went home twice, twice. Um Kinsey recently told me she there were multiple more times but they just weren't safe places to go, so we never got the chance to like go to those places. But I remember one time my mom had this new boyfriend and they had a trailer and we all had our own bedrooms not own but me and my sister shared and my brothers had their own room and it was. We were going back on a Sunday and on a Tuesday I was told we were not going back because my mom got drunk and was throwing glass and hitting her boyfriend. So I wasn't able to go back home.
Speaker 1:It was five days god, don't you just want to scream like I did multiple times? Okay, I would have. There was one time. Okay, fun fact we lived on, uh, one more child which is like it used to be, florida Baptist and I am distinctly not Baptist in how I exist in this world. And there was a day that I was on the phone and I was screaming obscenities and I realized my windows were open. That's the best. That's the best. That would have been that day. That would have been that day for me. I would have been absolutely outside of my mind. I would have been so angry as the foster mom, but also as somebody that wants best for kids and knows that best, if it can happen, is going back home. I would have just been like why did you screw up?
Speaker 3:It was, from a case management perspective, really difficult for me to navigate that point in time in the case because you know I've seen so many patterns. At this point I wanted it to work so badly because I knew that's what these kids wanted so badly and I was always just very skeptical about it. I never held my breath but I never wanted her to feel like she couldn't hold her breath. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I was very hopeful. I mean the whole home study, everything went perfectly, everything was. I mean, it was great, it was fine, there was no issues. All the rooms were set up, they had all the stuff the comforters, the sheets, the clothes, the stuffed animals. They had jobs.
Speaker 1:They had transportation, they were passing drug tests, they were doing all of it and the boyfriend was great.
Speaker 3:The boyfriend was great. Everyone loved him. He was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her in that amount of time. And so when I heard all of that, like it kind of just crumbled and fell apart over the course of two days and I was just like we were almost there.
Speaker 2:It was to the point where we were having sleepovers at the house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, unsupervised, like everything's moving in this direction Now in retrospect, looking back, I'm very glad that we did a transition plan at that point because, they don't always want to do that. If you have a home study that's passed and you have a parent who has completed a case plan, they don't feel the need for a transition plan. If she's ready, do it. I fought hard for a transition plan because I was not confident. I wanted to be confident, wanted so badly to be confident, but I wasn't.
Speaker 1:Also from a parent's like experience. You've not had your four kids at home. Has she had more babies at this point? No, okay, I feel like I need to ask that question around here. Um, but they haven't had four kids at home. It's been a while since they've been a full-time parent, so can you keep this together while you're also parenting is a really valid question when you were in your now adoptive home. Are you with siblings?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Were you in that home when this happened.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you hadn't gotten there yet, it had just been. You were into foster care. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And then there was a second time. We almost went home, but my mom did give up the rights to my little sister, so it would be because she had a nice home. She is with that home still, but she got adopted by that family, and so it would be easier to get three kids than all four.
Speaker 3:And even with the transition plan, like we were anticipating, doing like a staggered reunification, kind of doing two at a time to get her used to having two and then adding the other two, and that was going to be the plan for that, so it wasn't just throwing all four of them back altogether. It's a bit overwhelming. But yeah, we did have a TPR trial for her with the older three. The youngest one was already adopted by the time we got to trial, so you had to go through the trial yeah it was the only TPR trial I ever did.
Speaker 1:I mean most people sign before the trial starts. That's excruciating. That is excruciating and you're like 13, 14 at this point, 13. High school 13.
Speaker 2:I was in middle school.
Speaker 1:You were last year of middle school.
Speaker 2:And then I moved into this other house, 13,.
Speaker 1:I was in middle school.
Speaker 3:You were last year of middle school and then I moved into this other house Hated it.
Speaker 2:Another F, the last one you were in before you got adopted. I literally called Quincy multiple times. I said come get me. I refused to stay here. I refused, I stood my ground.
Speaker 3:Wait, oh no. Okay, I thought you were talking about the other one. I don't know the other one. Yeah, you do. Where you were living before you went, the older people oh no, not that I know I was like you didn't hate them. No, there was one home where I was. We were basically at the point where the previous home had said that they can no longer maintain her. At that point they were an older couple. They were a really big family, super sweet people. It was just not.
Speaker 3:The personalities clashed a lot and it was very like old school uh, discipline, okay, and it didn't really work for her and brie's like let me see what you got exactly give me your best shot, because I can sabotage like a pro.
Speaker 3:So at this point I had moved her from that home and we were going to another foster home. It was a single lady, older lady, that had agreed to take her as respite because we had found another family for her to go to as a placement, but they were on vacation, so we basically just needed someone to keep her for the weekend until they came back the following week. Well, I take her to this place and we're having a conversation with this lady and like it's not even personable really at all and like this was very on par for this foster mom. We love her, but you know, it's just one of those things. So she comes in and she's not really personable to Brie at all and she just immediately starts laying down the law. She's telling her all the rules, she's telling her the expectations.
Speaker 3:You can play your game, but you got to play it in the living room, right here on this TV. You're not playing it in your room with the door shut. This and this and this, and Brianna is just staring at me the whole time. She's talking to her, just glaring at me, and I'm like this is not gonna go. Well, we're not gonna make it through the weekend. No, we didn't make it through anything. We left. I mean, we get in the car. I knew, and I'm pretty sure I was on call at that point too. So I was like, if I leave here, I know I going to be coming back here tonight, so we might as well figure this out right now.
Speaker 1:I went to work with her. Yeah, I'm like you went to the office is what you did?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, what ended up happening was she went, instead of staying with that lady for respite, she went to her mom's for respite, which are the ones that adopted her. So she went there that weekend for respite and I laid everything out when I took her there, because at this point she was still throwing her tantrums like pretty regularly and they were like a little intense for a kid her age right, like that's a little extreme.
Speaker 1:I mean you're getting quite the reputation at this point. If I'm looking at this from a foster mom's perspective, I've had calls for kids that come with your history.
Speaker 3:We'll say and at this point in time too, she was very kept to herself. She just wanted to sit in her room, she wanted to play her video game, she wanted to be in her world.
Speaker 1:That's where she felt safe weird that it didn't work for you that you would have to play a video game in the living room at the other house. Sorry, keep going.
Speaker 3:I've got sarcasm for days um, and it was very clear at that point to me that that was her safe space.
Speaker 3:She didn't have to be the foster kid with those people she could be who she wanted to be and that was where she was comfortable. So at the previous house, when she got in trouble, all that was taken away. They didn't really give if you do this, then this is taken away. It was, if you do this, then it's all taken, taken away, and so that was the thing that didn't really work well for her at all. So anyway, fast forward. She goes to respite that weekend with this family, these two ladies, and I'm explaining everything to them. I said, you know, we don't know exactly what her triggers are. Most of the time, if she's being told to do something that she doesn't want to do, it's triggering, as per usual with many teenagers, yeah, but also your trigger was love.
Speaker 2:Yes, but we didn't know all of my triggers.
Speaker 3:I didn't even know all my triggers, I just knew I got triggered and I she's known me for years, so many years and we still don't know all my triggers so, um, I'm telling them all of this, she's in her room unpacking all of her stuff because she had so much stuff.
Speaker 1:The kid accumulates so many things you don't know when it's all gonna be taken away.
Speaker 3:Kinsey, like you gotta have your stuff like to the point where I was like brianna, do you need this washcloth?
Speaker 1:yes, that's coming with me. I got that at my second foster home. What are you even talking about?
Speaker 3:that has been with me through all of this so, uh, I'm telling them, like, you know, this is what it looks like when she throws a tantrum. She's very loud, she can be extremely loud, like ear piercing loud. Um, if she gets like that, just give her a big old hug and just make her sit there until she calms down. I promise she will calm down. Um, so we're going through all the things.
Speaker 3:I don't hear anything from them all weekend and I'm like okay, I got a call first thing, monday morning and she's like the mom that calls me. She goes hey, so Brie, I'm pretty sure they were already calling you Brie at this point. So when she said that, when she said Brie instead of Brianna, I was like hold on, because this is only for special people, like not everyone gets to call her this. So what's happening here? Uh, brie said she doesn't know this other family that she's going to and I was like, well, no, typically in foster care, you don't yeah, no, they don't have a meet and greet right, like she didn't know you before she came to you, correct?
Speaker 3:and so I'm like no, you know, they just had agreed to keep her for placement. They'll be back today, this afternoon, yeah, okay, well, that's great, but can she stay here? And I was just beside myself at that point. I was like, absolutely, she can stay there, like I'm assuming. The weekend went well. Oh yeah, we had dinner together every night, we played board games, we watched movies, we hung out. I'm like you must have a different kid. I don't know who you're talking about right now. This is really weird, but did I? Are you sure? They're like yeah, and then I get a call from her right after one of the moms her hair, she had blue hair dye in her hair. She's got cool moms.
Speaker 3:Okay, they're not regular moms they're so cool so she had a little bit of blue, like a blue streak in her hair. So brianna calls me and she's like kinsey. Can I dye my hair blue? I'm like girl, you do whatever you want to do at this point because who's gonna stop the judge?
Speaker 2:keep going because typically I ask and I just do it anyway, right?
Speaker 1:let's give him a chance to tell me yes right, okay, I'm more of a like don't ask and apologize later ask for forgiveness.
Speaker 3:Ask for forgiveness, yeah um, I've always been like that so I I mean she ends up staying there and I remember just going out to do those home visits and I would like walking on eggshells to each visit, right? I'm like, are we still good? Do you need me to take her with me? Is she okay? You're like kinsey, I promise she's fine. I'm like what happened?
Speaker 3:But it's like my favorite story to tell, because it's very telling in the environment that these kids are given right. It's like she was with this old school couple who had very strict rules on discipline and then she's moved into this environment where she's free to express herself and do what she wants and in a respectful manner. But they have such a good relationship with her. I mean the trust level is a hundred because she has seen and experienced and knows with these people that are now her moms that they're not going to punish her when she makes a mistake. They understand that you learn from those mistakes and you grow and I don't know that. I mean she's been in situations that she probably shouldn't have been in before, but they're the first people she calls yeah.
Speaker 2:I call them for everything, doesn't matter what I did. If it's bad I call them. I mean I trust them, and sometimes I'm like am I going to get grounded? They're like do you want to be grounded? I'm like no.
Speaker 3:It was the first time you ever drank alcohol, right?
Speaker 2:I came home. I came home, I was like I'm such a bad child. I'm so bad. I know I need a punishment. I don't deserve a forgiveness. I'm so bad. Just tell me, Just ground me for the rest of my life. And they're laughing at me. They're like you need some water and you need to go to bed you probably need some aspirin and then they were like. I was like then what's my punishment? What's what's, what's my punishment?
Speaker 1:they're like that hangover tomorrow yeah, it's gonna teach you a lesson I woke up and you were like go get some coffee.
Speaker 2:I just they. They called me to tell me that story because they were cracking up laughing.
Speaker 3:I woke up and you were like, go get some coffee. I just they called me to tell me that story because they were cracking up laughing. They're like she still to this day. I mean, she's been adopted by them for three years at this point now and she still is like but I did this. You're not going to like take my car or like take my phone like nothing. You have to learn from this stuff. But like they understand, that's not the right way to teach it. You learn from your mistakes in the best way that works for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think so many times, like one of my kids, we have conversations about how I would prefer to be able to parent her with conversation. Right, if you and I can just have a conversation about this and you adjust your behavior and move on with life, then it doesn't really have to go much further If you get a natural consequence from this a hangover for example and you learn your lesson, then it doesn't really have to go much farther.
Speaker 1:What's the least amount? I'm always asking this question as a parent what's the least amount of intervention that I have to do externally to help you learn and grow and like? Also, kids are supposed to make mistakes. That's your job. Better you make a mistake in the safe environment than grow like, go outside of the safe environment and make a big mistake later on in life. Right Wrapping up, I have one question that I want to ask. When you're talking to foster and adoptive parents, what is something that we can do that would make your experience in foster care better and and I realize that I'm asking you this for like the generalized global experience of kids in foster care how can we do this better?
Speaker 2:I really believe in space space. When you get a new foster kid, just their own space, giving them space. Space is very important. I know when I get into a new home I just want to be left alone, like I don't want to bond with these random people first day. I don't want them asking me a lot of questions same questions I've been answering for years. Just, I just want space, and it worked. I've been answering for years I just wanted space, and it worked. Like my now family, I walked in, set up my bedroom, didn't really come out until I was ready. They knocked on my door. Sometimes they didn't ask me a lot of questions, they gradually asked me so they got to know me. But within.
Speaker 2:Days and not just within an hour. So I say space is the biggest thing that helps a lot of kids.
Speaker 1:And then, when you're having a day, that's really hard, do you want space? Then, do you want? You're nodding your head?
Speaker 3:yes, you want a lot of space.
Speaker 1:So that helps you, that helps your brain process it without feeling alone. I think the thing that a caregiver would, a caring caregiver would think oh, they're having to do this on their own, I don't want them to feel alone. So how could we in that moment say, hey, you're not alone and I'm giving you space? Do we just say, hey, I'm here, Talk to me when you need to?
Speaker 2:So something my parents do is they give me space and after a little bit of me just in there quietly, like once, I'm quiet, because sometimes I'll yell at them and scream at them. But as soon as I get quiet, they wait a little bit. And then they come knocking on my door like, hey, are you ready to talk? Wait a little bit. And then they come knocking on my door like, hey, are you ready to talk? So they do give me a certain amount of time before, because they know I will talk to them. I do open up and talk to them. I talk about how they're like, how I'm feeling, how they're making me feel, what they're doing. That I don't like and we, we all fix it from both parts.
Speaker 2:But I've been on my own for years, from moving and not really building a relationship with people. So I know how to handle my emotions the best on my own. So I handle my emotions, I calm down, I work through my head, I think about what bugged me, what caused it, what I should do next time for it to be better. So that's what I'm doing in my own space and then, once everything is together, that's when we all talk as a family and that's when someone can actually be there for me.
Speaker 1:I love so much what you just said, that your brain is going. When you're in that space, you're processing, you're figuring this out. I think so many of us that know that we didn't have the skills taught or we didn't have however, this should be said but where you know like there's a knowing that you've got to figure this out, however it comes. However, you end up in that space. The people that have the knowing that you have to figure this out figure it out. And it's like what happened here. What can I do different? What was the thing? How does this happen?
Speaker 1:And there's our brain's work and I'm putting myself in this category, because my brain works like this too, where it's like it's a spinning, but I don't want to say it's spinning necessarily, because it doesn't feel like striving or grasping or anything. It just feels like our brains are going. Okay, I need to understand this a little bit more. I need to understand what just happened. I need to look at this from all of the different angles so that the next time I can do a different thing. It's very much a survival mechanism, for we get it because we had to survive, um, but it's dang if it doesn't come in useful the only thing it does not come in handy with that I genuinely have to talk to someone.
Speaker 2:And this is the only thing that I have to talk to someone right away about and I typically go for Kenzie is when I think about my siblings. That, really it. That's one thing I just can't process. I mean I know what's happening, I know what happened, like I'm not allowed to see them and I can. I know I'm not allowed to see them, but just processing everything it gets me really worked up and really emotional. So I text Kinsey at 2 am. I'd be like I can't do this. It's funny to see them. When was the last time you saw them, sadie?
Speaker 2:it's been like six years like six years, and then trey since the end of 2020, 2021, something like that one of those ones five-ish years, and then trey was my best friend, say they were all. I was close to all of them. Trey was my best friend and I don't even get to see him. Sadie she's growing up and I didn't get to see her grow up. And my older brother I used to talk to him a lot, but he's in jail right now, so I don't get to speak to any of my siblings besides Dakota, every now and then when he decides to call me, but that's the only. I just can't process everything of why I can't see them.
Speaker 1:It's such a deep loss. It's a living death right and living deaths are really hard to understand because they're still alive and so you're just like how is this possible? I have some living deaths in my family and it's excruciating, bree.
Speaker 2:I just don't want them to forget me.
Speaker 1:They couldn't possibly.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure Sadie forgot me.
Speaker 1:There's a knowing inside of all of our hearts right.
Speaker 2:Trey. I think he knows who I am. He was pretty older. I mean we were the closest, even though me and my older brother were closer gap Like me and Trey have like a five-year age gap but we were the closest. Sadie, we weren't the closest yet because she was just a baby, but I took care of her. I fed her, I made her bottles, I changed her diapers, fed her I made her bottles I changed her diapers.
Speaker 2:So I raised try and sadie, for the most part when my mom wasn't around. If she was helping when she was around. I mean I love my mom.
Speaker 2:I do of course but I did do a lot so I feel a lot closer to them. But try, since he was older he could have conversations, he knew, like he knows what's going on, Like we had a connection. But I feel like if I got to see Sadie grow up, we would have a connection too. Like me and my older brother aren't the closest I mean we are. Now we are, we have a good relationship, but we used to never not have a good relationship at all. So it's sad seeing the siblings I did have a good relationship with.
Speaker 3:I'm not allowed to talk to them or see them. But and I want to add, I don't. It's nobody's telling anybody that she's not allowed to see them. It's more so of the preference of the family yeah, I assumed that yeah which there's still communication.
Speaker 3:That happens, um, and I think that it's put. There's potential with her being able to see her youngest sister again. I think that she is just working through some stuff right now and they're trying to kind of stabilize her to get her prepared for that, because she has been asking questions and they do have things, they have pictures, they have, you know, things that sadie does. Yeah, yeah, um. So we're hopeful that that relationship will be rekindled. But, um, with trey's family they live down south, in south florida, and um, there's just it's kind of just like a lack of communication thing. I don't necessarily know the reasoning behind that.
Speaker 2:There's just no response really and that's why my this is the only topic that I just can't think rationally about in my own space, like I can't have my own space when I think about this, or I get worked up, I start having panic attacks and everything. So Kinsey's my go-to person when I'm in that type of mindset with the space.
Speaker 1:It's a really hard thing. Open adoptions are a really hard thing. Open sibling relationships are a really hard thing. Open open adoptions are a really hard thing. Open sibling relationships are a really hard thing. Like there's nothing easy about it and it sucks. It sucks on the caregiver side, like it sucks. Like um, trying to balance all of that as Sadie's parents and trying to say, okay, is this good for her?
Speaker 1:Is this bad for her? We know that science says it's good, but at this point in the relation, like, can she handle this If we do this? You know, there is biological information that I have from my kids' biological family that I've had to pace, like when they get it, because of all the questions that could happen or developmentally, are they, can they even handle this?
Speaker 3:And then, at the same time, it's like part of my job as their mom is to hold the pieces of their story and to give it to them as they can right, as they can handle it, but damn it's hard, and I think the hardest part about those situations with her younger siblings really was just that in the beginning there were things that were said that would make you think that they would still be able to have a relationship post adoption.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And again people say a lot of the right things.
Speaker 3:I'm not taking away from the fact that what you just said is also a thing. They have to make sure that they are also protecting that child, because that child is now theirs and their responsibility and they're responsible for keeping them safe and protecting them from anything that could trigger them or anything that could harm them in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:But even if it's hard, though right Like hard does not mean bad, and I think I want to go on record saying, if it is remotely possible to have an open adoption, an open relationship with any member of the biological family that is available for open and a safe person, right Like we're making sure that we're like, okay, yeah, you're not a drug addict, you're not a felon, you're not coming, you're not showing up at the house drunk at two o'clock in the morning waving a gun and like you're safe, then okay, this might be hard, but hard isn't bad, Hard is hard. The story is hard Like okay.
Speaker 3:Again, we could go on for a long time, right, but you know what I'm saying, though it's like God.
Speaker 1:There is nothing easy about foster care and adoption, because it starts in a hard place. Kids aren't supposed to be removed from their biological mom and dad. It's not supposed to happen. So, when it does, every other piece of the story has an element of hard to it, because we're not in the place where it was good and right and supposed to be. It's not supposed to be, and so we have to make lots of hard decisions that don't feel good, right, and there's an element. I should stop talking. I just started to stop talking before I get up on a soapbox and say, like I should stop talking. Okay, I'm going to stop talking. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to talk about?
Speaker 2:I think we covered a lot of big parts of the story.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think you're doing great. I think it's really cool to see an 18-year-old sit across from me that has lived some really hard chapters and is doing so good and has chosen a full, thriving life. It's not easy to choose that. I barely know you, but I'm really proud of you and I really hope my kids look like you when they're sitting across the desk from somebody when they're 18 and that they have as much light and joy in their eyes as you do. It's not. It's not easy to choose joy when you've had your story.
Speaker 2:I finally chose me you finally chose you.
Speaker 1:I'm really proud of you for choosing that, Kinsey. It's not easy to be the person that keeps showing up every single time, but it's so worth it. She makes it easy. It wasn't always easy. Now it's easier, is easier when when we're not sabotaging everything around us. Right, brie? Also thanks for letting me call you brie today. I didn't even know. Only special people get to do that, I know okay well I'm still gonna special part of my life.
Speaker 2:Everyone calls me brie. Yes.